Essays, Language and Their Applications

In Term 2 for my Language Arts lesson, we went into the different types of expository essays and learnt how to write them in the proper format and language. Instead of mentioning what I learnt, I shall talk about my reflections and its applications to our daily lives.

When Miss Huang first told the class at the beginning of the term that expository essays would be the form of writing tested in Term 2, I stepped back to recollect fragmented pieces of memories of this topic since my primary school days. As far back as I can remember, the first time I came upon and learnt this text type was in Primary 4, where I did a report on my own family in the third person point of view. At that point of time, I just did the piece of writing for the sake of doing so, as well as to learn and know more about my family's roots and traditions. Despite this, I failed to see how expository essays would help us in our daily applications. I also roughly recollect that I had done several essays in concept units such as "Change", without having a generalised view of this text type.

After a whole term of analysing different types of essays from our lessons, I learnt about causal analysis essays, argumentative essays, comparative essays and many others. Personally, I found essays much more engaging and fruitful to write than narrative essays. For me, I find the whole idea of expressing my ideas an opinions clearly and precisely to others a little tedious and difficult. Despite the public speaking opportunities the school has given the students to speak up and let one's voice be heard in different settings, I find unease in putting my ideas into words.

After all, the language is something one defines, probably the only reason why we study languages is to allow and facilitate communication and interaction between individuals. I find that ideas need not only be expressed through words, as the only means of communication. Through my exposure to the arts, I have found that different art forms can also be used to express feelings, evoke emotions and convey messages, similar to what written and spoken words can do. In my opinion, music and art are just different variations of the language we define and use today. They are all subsets of one overall heading, with their common purpose of communication.

Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if music and art forms can become as popularised as languages are today, or even replace languages. However, I must conceive that this is just a remote thought that few people share. The arts could very well take over the role of languages in the future, but it will be something in the far future. The fact that languages are recognised as the common means of communication is because of the fact that since the beginning of the evolution of men, symbols (ancestor of words) have been the basis of communication. To change something that has been in the roots of human beings for millions of years, would be tremendously arduous and almost impossible.

Coming back to the topic of essays, we in fact unknowingly construct and use essays in our everyday lives, even if it might not be in written or spoken forms. For example, when we choose between two meals. For example, chicken rice and laksa, we will consider different aspects of both food items, similar to comparative essays. We may compare aspects such as their prices, healthiness, tastiness, hygiene and others. Nevertheless, this comparison which we do in our heads can be written down on paper as an expository text. The reason why I feel that expository essays are necessary, instead of thinking about ideas, is so that we can share our opinions with others who might be interested in the same issue as us. Expository essays which are written down also gives us an exposure to the variety of interests and issues out there.

Overall, I feel that the expository essays which we learn now also form the basis of our future working life. We would probably have to do analysis of certain issues, or give suggestions to improve the welfare of the staff, or how to increase profit for the company. Essentially, essays act as the bridge between thoughts and words, and between ourselves and others, in the sense that our thinking is reflected in another's mind, and possibly spark a new inspiration from there.